Entries in BMW
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ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images(SAN FRANCISCO) -- San Francisco biker Henry Wolf has sued BMW, claiming his 1993 motorcycle from the German manufacturer has left him with an erection lasting two years.

In paperwork filed in San Francisco Superior court, the San Francisco Gate reports Wolf is claiming "mental and emotional anguish" because the bike's "ridged seat" left him with a "severe case of priapism" -- or an erection that can't subside -- after he took a four-hour motorcycle trip.

PRNewsFoto/BMW Group(ONTARIO, Calif.) -- Another high-profile company is coming under the scrutiny of the National Labor Relations Board after a union in California filed a complaint last week against German car manufacturer BMW.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 495 union said BMW is violating labor laws by planning not to renew the contracts of 100 workers at its Ontario, Calif., distribution warehouse, and instead outsource the work to a logistics company.

The NLRB has come under fire recently for a case involving airplane manufacturer Boeing. The NLRB said Boeing “retaliated” against unionized employees at its Washington assembly plant when it moved part of the construction for its Dreamliner 787 jet to a newly built plant in South Carolina, a state without heavy union representation.

The issue has caught the attention of Republicans in Congress, who claim the NLRB has overstepped its authority and tried to dictate private business decisions -- and threatening jobs in the process.

Republicans on the House Education & the Workforce Committee passed a bill Thursday along strict party lines that would prevent the board from dictating where a private company can do business. It is not scheduled for consideration in the full House and is unlikely to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has also held a hearing to assess possible changes his committee might want to make to the board, including disbanding it altogether.

The California Teamsters union complaint is in the early stages and has not incited a similar outpouring of discontent from Congress, for now. The complaint is still being reviewed by the board and a hearing has yet to be scheduled.

Kenn Sparks, a spokesman for BMW of North America, said the move is part of the company’s nationwide strategy to “focus on the core aspects of our business” and turn over all other aspects to “supporting businesses.”

Sparks said four of BMW’s six distribution warehouses are already run by logistics companies whose sole business is “the science and art of moving things.”

“There are external companies who are better at logistics than we are,” Spark said. “Many companies make this determination.”

Sparks said BMW’s actions are justified because the contract specifies that at the end of the contract, the company must negotiate only “end of contract” issues such as severance pay, which it has every intention of doing.

“The contract is expiring and we are free to decide how to go forward after that. We aren’t ending anything,” he said. “The jobs are not going away. We are not closing the warehouse. There are going to be local jobs with local people, so there is no reason for there to be any backlash.”